La Máquina

Despite a cumbersome narrative and a sometimes confusing tone, “La Máquina” has many high points. All these years later, Luna and Berna’s on-screen chemistry remains electric, the inner workings of the boxing world are intriguing, and this story of friendship, legacy, lies and ambition makes for enjoyable television.

The result is a fluffy, funny thrill that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The drama drags in scenes dwelling on Esteban’s hallucinations, with too many scenes set inside his mind. But when García Bernal and Luna share the screen, their chemistry sparks.

Courtesy of Ripstein’s stewardship and Bernal and Luna’s charm, it bobs, weaves, and wallops with precision.

The episodes are tight, the energy is boundless, and the result is a series that’s endlessly entertaining.

It’s also never boring, with big-swing stylistic flourishes and a very funny Luna (who looks like an insane, coked-up, self-botox-injecting Robert Evans, all spray tans and gaudy jewelry and pastel suits) that make it, while certainly not the cleanest of watches, a unique one that can be a sight to behold.

The chemistry between Bernal and Luna is at the heart of La Máquina, and we hope that the show’s producers lean on that for the rest of the season.

It’s trying to do so many things, and it’s my guess that some of its more challenging facets — the effects of CTE on boxers, the class struggle built into Mexico’s century-long love affair with the sweet science, the aforementioned romantic and journalistic subplots — might get variable degrees of lost. More than that, though, I appreciated watching this narrative come together. I’d happily watch more of this chemistry-filled, unpredictable muddle.

It’s a strange, though not unwieldy amalgam of genres and tones. .... When “La Máquina” isn’t out to scare you, it can be quite beautiful, real, moving and delightful.

Bernal and Luna are a force to be reckoned with when they share the screen together, and that alone will draw folks in. The execution may be shaky at times, but the unraveling mystery threaded throughout La Máquina will keep the audience clicking “play next episode” until the end.

Showrunner Marco Ramirez and director Gabriel Ripstein often struggle to make the pieces fit into their six-episode package, even if some of them work well individually.

Rather than dig into a gritty realism, “La Máquina” leans toward the loopy and mysterious. .... Andy and Esteban bicker often, and the show is most exciting when the two are ripping into each other.

What remains is a show that works in fits and starts, coming alive when Luna is commanding the screen with his carnivalesque performance, and ebbing when the narrative shifts to Bernal or González’s characters.

As a viewer, I can get past not knowing or understanding the motivations of a mysterious antagonist if the chaos they bring is worth watching. And, to be sure, there is more than one plot twist in this mystery I did not see coming, but those moments are fleeting and shallow. They did little to distract me from a series of unresolved subplots.